We are this close to finishing our biggest water project yet (serving 2,000 people in 440+ homes) in Salinas Grande. It’s been met with a ton of setbacks: cutting through giant boulders in the ground, digging long stretches without shade, and the challenge of a global pandemic to boot.
But God has been faithful! He’s kept the encouragement and resources coming to move the project forward and we have developed some incredible relationships within the community during the process.
Alan Wilser was down in Nicaragua just weeks ago in hopes of catching the big “Turn On The Water” moment, but a few last minute problems reared up to push the finish line back by several weeks. Here are those issues:
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We discovered rust in the bottom of the community’s tanks which we are re-using. We’ll drain each tank, one at a time, in order to remove rust and repaint with a very specialized epoxy coating. This will run about $5,000, but it’s way better than building new tanks which would cost well over $100,000. Yikes.
- 200+ water meters that we thought were usable from the old system were either broken or too close to the end of their usable life and so we had to buy new ones which cost us time and another $7,000.
Other than these two setbacks, here’s what is left at the moment.
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Line flushing – Filling the new water lines with highly chlorinated water for several days to sterilize them. (In Progress now)
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Installing 440+ connections from the main water line to each home. This will happen in each of the six distinct sub-communities within Salinas Grande one at a time and could take anywhere from 5 to 10 days.
And then… BOOM!! The TURN ON THE WATER moment will finally happen and a GREAT BIG FIESTA shall commence in Salinas Grandes!
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